


Amputate- but don't let me forget

by thelostrocketeer



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Companion!Jim, Gen, Memory Wipe, Wholocked, a la Donna.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelostrocketeer/pseuds/thelostrocketeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are a scared little man with memories that won't fade. He's The Doctor.<br/><i>I’ll remember, I’ll remember, I’ll remember, I’ll remem-</i></p><p>Basically- the Wholocked reason why Moriarty is a psychopath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amputate- but don't let me forget

You step into your flat. It’s been a long day and you can’t wait to go to bed. As you walk to your bedroom, you realise that you are not alone. There is a man sitting on your couch. You’re stopped in your tracks and your mouth opens slightly. Memories flood your mind and you stand there, mouth agape for a few seconds. Your mind returns to you and you finally speak.

“It’s you.”

Because there he is. The ghost from your past. You never thought you’d ever see him again, seeing as well- you thought he was dead. He is The Doctor. You can’t remember if he had proper name, but you’ve always just called him The Doctor.

“James. How are you?”

You take off your coat and place in on the back of a chair as you look at him carefully. He looks the same as he did when you were ten. Any other man would be shocked, perhaps even stunned but you don’t even flinch. He’s still got the large leather coat and the same pair of tatty dark jeans. His face hasn’t aged a bit.

“You came back.”

“I did,” he says, nodding sagely.

“Would you like some tea?” you ask, voice trembling slightly.

He nods again and you walk over to the small kitchenette in the corner of your flat. You put the kettle on as he walks around the living room, looking at pictures and examining the knick-knacks you’ve collected in your thirty years of life.

“I see you finally went to see the Great Wall,” he says with a small smile.

“I did. It wasn’t as amazing as half the places we visited, Doctor.”

He smiles at that. “Oh James, the earth has its merits as well you know. If not why would I keep coming back?”

You look away and stare at the kettle. It’s odd, having a normal conversation with the man who changed your life forever and then left you behind.

“They say that water only boils when nobody is looking,” you say as you turn around to look for some tea bags in the small cupboard.

“Nonsense, water boils as long as you apply heat,” he mumbles distractedly.

The silence looms over the room, filled with static electricity and unspoken words. The Doctor continues his observations- picking things up, peeking into drawers, flipping through books.

“Did you get to become an actor like you wanted then, James?” he asks, finally looking up at you. “You always had such a brilliant mind for acting, even back then.”

“No. I became an accountant. Dull, boring. But the only thing my mother could afford. My brilliant mind, wasted on endless numbers and taxes,” you say. As you open the box of tea bags, you notice your hands shaking, ever so slightly. You reach over to grab two mugs.

You remember how it all began. You were just a little boy, growing up in a small village in Ireland. He came in a flying blue wooden police box.  It was bigger on the inside. Your friends made fun of you.

They called you crazy.

But you couldn’t have been. You helped him save a small planet in the year 45 342. You learned three different dialects of Zrukronian. How could a crazy ten year old have done all that?

Then you remember the mocking voices of your school mates. You remember the horribly worried expression your mother began to wear whenever you told her the stories. At first she thought you were just being a child. Then of course, as mothers always do when their children keep talking about something even when they begin to get older, she began to fret. How could her son not realise that these were all crazy ideas, things that could never happen?

“My mother thought I was mad, you know.”

At this, you meet his eye and he looks away. You giggle; the noise strange even to your own ears.

 “You left me,” you hear yourself whisper, your voice accusatory; taking on a sharper edge. Your anger bleeds through the cool mask you have on your face. The doctor remains silent, his expression unreadable.

 “I was ten and you took me on space adventures, a whole year of flying everywhere- through space and time and then you left me back home again, barely an hour after we first met. I thought you were dead. You were said you were dying.

“I mourned for you. I had to miss a whole week of school because I couldn’t stop crying. You were my friend, Doctor. You were my friend and you left me, ten years old, thinking that my friend was dying and that there was nothing I could have done about it. Do you know how helpless it made me feel, Doctor?!”

You’re yelling now and in the back of your mind you have an abstract thought about making noise so late at night. His face is blank, but you can feel the stormy clouds of guilt rising around him.

“I lied... I’m so sor-“

“I saw things no ten year old should have ever seen, Doctor,” you begin again, cutting him off.  
“I saw aliens. I saw creatures beyond my imagination and for what? Nobody believed me. Nobody wanted to believe me. I was ten and I lost all my friends. I gave them up so I wouldn’t forget you.”

He looks away again, staring into the dark sky outside, as if there is someone waiting for him out there.

Realisation dawns upon you and suddenly you feel jarringly calm. As though all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room and your mind is sharp and clear as day. You realise you are still holding the mugs and you set them down gently onto the counter top.

“Are you here to make me forget?” you say slowly.

It brings him out of his reverie and he looks at you, his bright blue eyes piercing into your soul.

“Yes.”

Your heart does a double take and you feel bile rising in your throat. You try to calm yourself down by taking a deep breath.

“Why?”

“Because I made a mistake with you, James. You were too young… I thought that your age would help you forget when you grew older, but I was wrong. You still remember and it’s ruined your life… I’m so sorry, James.”

You can’t breathe. Your breath catches in your throat and _you can’t breathe_.

“Please. Please don’t. Please don’t make me forget. Like the time we went to the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, remember that? Remember the name you used? Richard Brook. Remember how fun it was, Doctor?”

You’re pleading now. It’s like bargaining with the devil, either outcome with its own fiery pit.

“You won’t even remember it in a few minutes, James. Don’t hold on to it, you’ll never go back. I made a mistake, bringing you with me. I shouldn’t have. But you were so eager and so inquisitive. And I was so alone. Please forgive me, James. I really am sorry.”

"But I don’t want to forget,” you say and you suddenly feel something cool drip on your hand. You touch your face. You’re crying.

“Don’t worry James, I’ll remember you. It’s just better if you don’t remember me.”

He walks over to you. You close your eyes and he places his hand on your forehead. I’ll remember, you tell yourself. You repeat it like a mantra in your mind.

_I’ll remember, I’ll remember, I’ll remember, I’ll remem-_

“Goodbye James,” you hear him say.

“Goodbye Doctor,” you whisper as you feel him reaching into your mind, taking things apart and putting things in.

\--

You wake up the next day, feeling as though you’ve had the most peculiar dream.  You walk to the mirror and take a deep breath. You look closer and see that you’ve picked up a bruise on the side of your head. You can’t remember for the life of you how you got it. You shrug it off; it doesn’t matter anyway.

\--

Sometimes you have strange thoughts. Like memories, only they’re not yours. They’re distorted, like someone purposely scratched a record with a screwdriver and let it play on repeat on a broken gramophone.

\--

One day, you see a man with wild curly black hair and a long black coat. He walks with a shorter blonde man with a limp in his right leg.

Something tells you that you’ve met him before.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I write a lot of fanfiction for English class. This should probably be a bad thing.
> 
> Originally titled "The Unexpected Visitor"


End file.
